0–9 months – See this age across all domains Infants

What educators might observe

• Imitates expressions on caregiver’s face
• Shakes, mouths, and drops objects

Ways educators might support the child's development

• Meet the needs of the children so they experience trust, happiness, and joy
• Have fun with the child— laugh, sing, giggle, and dance
• Include pictures of babies and children showing different emotions from different cultures in the learning environment
• Provide a variety of teethers that are different sizes, and textures and that make different gentle sounds

8–16 months – See this age across all domains Infants

What educators might observe

• Imitates unusual uses for objects (e.g, places pot on head as a hat)
• Tries out ways to use objects that they have observed in other places (e.g., bangs on a surface after watching drumming at a cultural event)

Ways educators might support the child's development

• Observe and acknowledge children’s creative use of objects
• Create environments where children can experience freedom of movement, exploring their bodies in space and experiencing what they can do physically
• Remove screens and electronic toys from the learning environment
• Sing songs from your own culture and learn songs from the children’s families and cultures

15–24 months – See this age across all domains Toddlers

What educators might observe

• Invents new uses for everyday materials ( e.g., bangs on pots and pans)
• Tries different combinations of objects (e.g., tries to fit small blocks into a peg sorter)
• Imitates adult’s idea (e.g., following educator’s example to makes themselves a necklace by stringing large beads or tubes together)

Ways educators might support the child's development

• Include open-ended materials in the learning environment
  • Various wooden blocks
  • Cardboard blocks
  • Textural fabrics
  • Various kinds of paper
  • Clay
  • Egg cartons
  • Play dough
  • Interlocking toys
  • Crayons
  • Paints
• Be creative and inventive with language; engage in wordplay by making up silly words that rhyme with one another

24–36 months – See this age across all domains Toddlers

What educators might observe

• Uses everyday objects in imaginary play (e.g., picks up sticks and pretends they are swords)
• Experiments with using various materials to solve problems (e.g., places a block on a stack of papers that is blowing away)
• Dresses up as characters, (e.g., wraps scarf around neck and pretends to be a superhero)

Ways educators might support the child's development

• Provide different kinds of music and encourage the child to move to the different beats and tempo
• Include open-ended props for dramatic play, such as boxes, bags, and large pieces of cloth
• Provide everyday items for children to play and create with, such as paper towel rolls, tissue paper, yarn, string, and tape

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe

• Asks adult for assistance with their creations (e.g., child asks educator to make a tent by putting a sheet over a table)
• Embodies a pretend play character day after day
• Experiments with materials (e.g., dips paint into water and sees what color the water turns)
• Invents words in play (e.g., says the specks of dirt in the sunlight are “bittle”)
• Sings made up songs to themselves
• May have an imaginary friend

Ways educators might support the child's development

• Provide access in the learning environment to open-ended materials children can use in a variety of ways
  • Blank paper of different sizes, textures, and colors
  • Watercolor and tempera paints
  • Pencils, colored pencils, crayons, and markers
  • Collage materials such as origami paper, pom-poms, and buttons
  • S culpture materials, such as pipe cleaners and cardboard
  • Pieces of cloth in a pretend area
  • Boxes
  • Scissors
  • Masking tape and glue
• Guide the child’s use of materials, noticing and commenting on their actions

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe

• Engages in detailed pretend play with peers
• Makes objects that they need for pretend play (e.g., makes a boat out of a cardboard box)
• Tries several ways to create the object they have in mind (e.g., child experiments with different foundations until they have found the one that will hold up a block bridge)
• Develops techniques for painting and drawing (e.g., makes fast and slow strokes, or thick and thin lines)
• Hears peers speaking a different language and makes up nonsense words and says they are speaking that language

Ways educators might support the child's development

• Allow children to save artwork and return to it. Have a place to keep projects if the child needs to transition to another activity and wants to continue to work on the project at another time.
• Display children’s art, at child’s level, around the room and in the hallway. Document and share the process in which the art is being created with children, through written descriptions and photographs.
• Provide child with access to artists and artwork from own and other cultures (e.g., pictures of famous artworks, sculptures, and artifacts)
• Include time in the day for children to experiment with musical instruments, song, and dance

5-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe

• Adds detail to creations (e.g., makes a clay bird with wings and a beak)
• Asks more experienced people for advice about their creations (e.g., discusses ways to build stairs with an educator and then uses their advice)
• Uses writing to add detail to their projects (e.g., includes a stop sign in their block construction)
• Makes detailed and elaborate costumes for pretend play

Ways educators might support the child's development

• Include books in the learning environment about inventive and creative characters
  • Frederick by Leo Lioni
  • Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson
  • Iggy Peck Architect by Andrea Beatty
  • Rosie Revere Engineer by Andrea Beatty
  • The Dot by Peter Reynolds
  • B eautiful Oops by Barnie Saltzberg
• Teach vocabulary related to art-making (“One color of paper could overlap, or go on top of another color, in your collage”)
• Provide opportunities for learning in which there is no right or wrong way to accomplish the goal, and encourage children to try different strategies or solutions

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe

• Uses their knowledge of science or social studies in creating (e.g., finds a beetle and makes a home for it with leaves and sticks)
• Collaborates with peers to create a project over time (e.g., works together in a small group to paint the backdrop for a play)
• Uses a familiar story as the basis to tell a new version (e.g., learns several Anansi stories and then makes up their own story about a tricky spider)

Ways educators might support the child's development

• Include “choice time” in the daily schedule during which the child has access to a variety of materials and may follow their own idea for a project
• Provide familiar tools such as scissors, rulers, tape, and glue for work
• Document and facilitate children in recording their work with photographs, drawings, and writing; reflect on the process of creating
• Introduce the formal vocabularies of music, dance, and visual arts

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe

• Uses standardized tools to assist them in their projects (e.g., uses a yardstick to measure the amount of string they need to hang up a curtain)
• Thinks flexibly about how to create a project
• Creates variation of existing games with peers
• Adds functional details to a project (e.g., sews on a button and makes a rough buttonhole to hold on a cape)

Ways educators might support the child's development

• Provide specific challenges to see how children encounter them, (e.g., ask chi ldren if they can figure out how to use a piece of paper to support a book)
• Ask the child(ren) to use drawing and writing to plan a longterm project, alone and in groups, and include a materials list and book/computer resource list for project
• Support child(ren) in collecting materials to create their project (e.g., collect bottle caps for children to use for wheels when building vehicles)

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe

• Presents an idea for a creative project to the group and then waits for the group’s feedback and incorporates their ideas
• Considers how objects appear from points of view not their own (e.g., tries drawing a picture from a bird’s-eye perspective)
• Incorporates ideas from cultures they have learned about into their creations

Ways educators might support the child's development

• Create opportunities for children to work collaboratively on creative projects over the course of several weeks
• Facilitate group reflection on projects, exploring what children noticed, what observations they made, and what they learned about working together
• Provide more specialized tools and materials for use in making projects
  • Scales to compare weights
  • Graphite pencils
  • Chalk pastels
  • Editing software
• Visit museums and libraries to learn about varieties of art -making and engineering